An actual picture from the cattle drive between the two ranches.
For as long as I can research, and for as long as family lore goes back, our family has always wintered cattle in the Sacramento valley (Butte County) and summered cattle in Plumas and Lassen counties. It’s just how it’s always been.
The cattle trucks we use now.
Now we use large semi trucks to take our cattle back and forth every spring and fall, the trip takes about a hour and a half. But before we had cattle trucks, the family had to move cattle on horseback, twice a year. The trip took at least a week. A week of following cattle everyday on horseback, a week of chuck wagon cooking, a week of no baths, no indoor plumbing. It’s like my nightmare (I am a huge fan of plumbing, huge!).
This a picture of my family on the way home from the mountains circa 1930ish
My great uncle and the chuck wagon to his left.
Last spring my Dad found the “port a potty” used by 3 generations before me on these week-long cattle drives. This port a potty could be placed between two rocks or stumps, and it would give you a nice seat to do your business. When you moved on the next day, you simply grabbed your port a potty seat, stuck it in the chuck wagon, covered your business hole and moved on. Ingenious actually.
This was the poo board before. Notice it is damaged – rot and termites.
When my parents showed me this board I said, “that’s mine now” and scurried it off to a friend’s house. This friend just happened to be a skilled furniture maker. I traded him old barn wood from the collapsed barn of last year, for him to turn the poop board into a coffee table for me. And boy howdy did he do a good job!!!! My friend, Jordan brought the finished table over yesterday. It is gorgeous.
Perfection.
If you haven’t figured out by now, I’m slightly obsessed with learning more about this side of the family. I’ve spend countless hours researching, looking through pictures, talking to family members, so something like this table means so much to me. Plus it’s quirky and fun.
Jordan went to great lengths to keep the poo board as authentic as possible. Instead of replacing the damaged board he painstakingly refinished them. Wow.
Jordan used old fence posts from the ranch as legs.
Now that I got the poo table refinished I think I’m going to move on to the outhouse door my Dad found in this year’s collapsed barn. Ideas anyone?
The door to the outhouse that was at the ranch.
